Was USA behind Baghdad terror attacks?

 
WAS the USA behind this week's terrorist outrages in Baghdad?

That's the question now being asked by many people in Iraq, while the western media paints a picture of a sectarian civil war erupting after the pseudo-departure of American forces.

Sami Ramadani writes in The Guardian that divide-and-rule tactics remain the only viable weapon the Americans have to control or influence the Iraqi political scene.

He says: "In the rush to provide an explanation for the nihilistic violence, the same old simplistic mantra is trotted out.

"Thursday's co-ordinated, simultaneous attacks are invariably described by the media as sectarian. Few pause to ask why a 'sectarian' attack would be aimed at all sects and ethnicities equally.

"Only a handful raise the possibility that these attacks are not sectarian in motive, or a reflection of sectarian hatred on the streets, but are instead designed to create sectarian entrenchment and animosity, and ignite street conflict.

"Similarly, analysts are quick to conclude that both the power struggle within the political elite, and the explosions are the result of the withdrawal of US troops. They portray the US forces as the good Samaritan who prematurely left the scene.

"Too few examine the legacy of the occupiers' poisonous presence at the heart of Iraqi society for nearly nine years, or ask why the US has built the biggest embassy in the world in Baghdad, staffed by 15,000 personnel and spies."
 
Adds Ramadani, a political refugee from Saddam's regime: "Such is the anger at the occupation that many Iraqis think the US was behind Thursday's attack. This belief is dismissed as conspiratorial, but it is widely held.

"There is a reason for this. Apart from the horrific violence committed directly by the occupation forces and Pentagon-contracted mercenaries, the US also created Iraqi secret militia, and smuggled tens of thousands of weapons and tons of explosives into Iraq through private firms in Bosnia.

"[Paul] Bremer was unable to tell a congressional committee how he spent an unaccounted-for $8.8bn dollars, but many Iraqis suspect that it was used to fund violent sectarian forces.

"Indiscriminate killings and terrorist attacks were a permanent feature of the US-led occupation, and to many ordinary Iraqis, Thursday's bloodshed is just more of the same. "

Meanwhile, some anti-imperialists also see the hand of the USA behind this week's terrorist attack in Damascus in which 55 people died.

US firms behind Afghan terrorism, says Karzai

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai has said US private security firms, including Xe Services LLC, formerly known as Blackwater, are behind terrorism in the country.

Press TV reports that at a press conference in Kabul, Karzai said that US security companies have been behind explosions that have claimed the lives of women and children.

The Afghan president added that they have caused 'blasts and terrorism' in different parts of Afghanistan over the past months.

The Afghan president said his administration cannot even distinguish between the bomb blasts carried out by US security firms and those of the Taliban militants.

"In fact we don't yet know how many of these blasts are by Taliban and how many are carried out by them (US security companies)."

Blackwater has been involved in the murder of several Afghan citizens over the past years. The company has also been struggling with a trail of legal cases and civil lawsuits, including one for killing 17 Iraqi civilians during a Baghdad shootout in 2007.

Earlier in June, the CIA reportedly admitted that Blackwater had been loading bombs on US drones that target suspected militants in neighboring Pakistan.

The Afghan president has also pointed out that American private security firms are corrupt and have fueled nine years of war.

"Deals under the name of private security companies are cut in the hallways of American government buildings. It involves 1.5 billion dollars," he said.

Karzai has accused security companies of running what he called an economic mafia based on crooked contracts.

"The money, 1.5 billion dollars, is being distributed there (in the United States) on Blackwater [sic] and this and that."

The developments come as the notorious Blackwater has been awarded a five-year State Department contract worth up to USD 10 billion for operations in Afghanistan.

In August, Karzai ordered all security firms to disband before the end of the year.

Some diplomats and military officials say Karzai has been under intense pressure to reconsider his decision.

However, Karzai says he is steadfast in his decision to dissolve foreign security firms in the country despite US pressure to reconsider the decision.

The private companies are said to be in charge of providing security for foreign officials and embassies as well as development projects in Afghanistan.

Karzai has blamed mercenaries for civilian deaths and corruption in the troubled region.

Many observers have linked the USA to false flag terror operations in the past, ranging from the notorious Gladio network in Europe to strong connections with al-Qaeda.

Protest outside 'terrorism' court case

ANGRY protesters have blocked the entrance to a court in Derry where an Irish republican faced a bizarre terrorism charge.

Gary Donnelly, 39, is accused of ' having a mobile phone that was used for purposes connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism', reports the Belfast Telegraph.

The police (RUC) allege a phone call to a journalist claiming responsibility for two pipe bomb attacks by the Real IRA had been traced to Mr Donnelly's phone.

His supporters point out that this sort of call would hardly be made on someone's own phone and add that the journalist specifically said it was not Mr Donnelly's voice.

They say the whole case is nothing but a set-up by the British state and blatant political intimidation of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, of which Mr Donnelly is part, and radical republicanism in Northern Ireland as a whole.

The protesters held placards referring to the "Internment by Demand" and chanted "SS RUC" at police outside.

The district judge rejected the police's call for bail to be refuse and released Mr Donnelly to appear again on September 20.

UK police terrorise photographers

BRITISH police continue to abuse so-called "anti-terrorist" powers to harrass people taking photographs in public places.

The ongoing scandal has been highlighted in the Independent newspaper on December 3 and 4.

It reported how police are stopping and interrogating completely innocent people taking pictures of anything from tourist spots to fish and chip shops, apparently under the impression that they possess a totalitarian-state carte blanche to do whatever they want.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, the Government's independent reviewer of anti-terrorism laws, told the paper: "The fact that someone is taking photographs is not prima facie a good reason for stop and search and is very far from raising suspicion. It is a matter of concern and the police will know that they have to look at this very carefully."

Lord Carlile's comments come just days after a BBC journalist was stopped and searched by two police community support officers as he took photographs of St Paul's Cathedral. Days earlier Andrew White, 33, was stopped and asked to give his name and address after taking photographs of Christmas lights on his way to work in Brighton.

Jenny Jones, a Green Party member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Scotland Yard's governing body, said police officers stopping innocent people, as Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, allows them to do, was "unacceptable" and "illegal".

She added: "Some officers think they have the right to seize cameras. It is unbelievable and amounts to an abuse of power."

A campaign group called I'm A Photographer Not a Terrorist has been set up in response to the police intimidation.

West's secret links to al-Qaeda exposed

SECRET links between western intelligence networks and their so-called enemies are revealed in a fascinating article in the New Internationalist.

The author, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development and has writtten several books about the War on Terror.

He writes: "Islamist terrorism cannot be understood without acknowledging the extent to which its networks are being used by Western military intelligence services, both to control strategic energy resources and to counter their geopolitical rivals. Even now, nearly a decade after 9/11, covert sponsorship of al-Qaeda networks continues.

"If the ‘war on terror’ is to end, it won’t be won by fighting the next futile oil war. It will be won at home by holding the secretive structures of government to account and prosecuting officials for aiding and abetting terrorism – whether knowingly or by criminal negligence.

"Ultimately only this will rein in the ‘security’ agencies that foster the ‘enemy’ we are supposed to be fighting."